KINDRED SPIRITS:

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[Band photo courtesy of Rachel Murray)

Ask Madison Bloodbath where they got their name and you may receive a reasonably straightforward non-answer, as we did: “It’s stupid, and no one wants to hear it.”

Fair enough, we’ll just make up a story of our own: It comes from that flick featuring a mermaid who names herself after Madison Ave. ’cause she doesn’t have a name and then ends up in a bathtub when her huge flipper starts to grow. (Now, where this whole “blood” thing originates, we have no idea, but the aforementioned movie was better than Back to School, yet worse than Teen Wolf. Are you still with us?)

Citing such influences as “Leatherface, booze, chicks, Lookout Records,” Madison Bloodbath are living a life that’s deftly balanced amongst all sensory indulgences—tastes, sights, sounds, smells and touchin‘. This stuff’s somewhat documented, too. “We drank a lot of beer this weekend,” says vocalist St. Matthew in a recent MySpace blog post, “as well as a bottle of Jameson that our friend stashed behind the club we were at Friday that I remembered was there after he left, so I liberated that shit.”

As for the music, it’s within the ballpark as the above-described, too—gruff vocals that recall Leatherface’s Frankie Stubbs or Chuck Ragan from Hot Water Music (with whom the act has played before), melodic chord progressions that would make Bob Mould a proud papa, plus the superior drumming of Mikey, who seemed to invest his all into the snare, as if trying to sledgehammer the door off a 1980s Oldsmobile.

The Bloodbath’s already landed two tours of California, hit up Reno and (appropriately) nailed The Fest last year in Gainesville. It’s not been without casualties, as St. Matthew broke his ankle at one of their shows. Plus, he’s known for other stuff as well: “Dudes like for our singer to get naked. Come to our shows—they are fun!”